Garden haiku

The prompt on One Deep Breath this week is to write haiku about the garden. I've written four - one for each season. I've been reading a lot about haiku recently and I think these are technically my best haiku yet.....

sunlit garden pond
full of fish and newborn frogs:
heron flies above

party on the lawn:
the sweet scent of roses
fills the humid air

bright coloured leaves fall
on flower bed and lawns:
bonfire smoke rises

stark black branches
against a snow filled sky:
one crow on the lawn

An idea for old photos

I saw this idea at A Little Imagination and a Pile of Junk . This is my first attempt to do something similar. The photo is a view of the village where I lived in Malawi when I was over there teaching with Voluntary Service Overseas. The fabric is a remnant from one of my favourite Malawian fabrics, that I had made into a dress when I was over there and then there's a Malawian stamp. The background is scrap corrugated card. Hopefully I'll do more of these! it's a good way of using up extra copies of your favourite photos or those photos that don't quite work.

haiku - two perspectives on cars

The challenge this week on One Deep Breath is to write two haiku showing one topic from two perspectives. I chose cars as my subject and these are my haiku:


Gas guzzling monsters
Eating up the countryside
Destroyers of earth


Beautiful machines
Pleasure on the open road
Personal freedom

haiku

Golden carp in pond
solid, jewel-like, placid

in trembling water

Crafting Inspiration

I haven't been so crafty recently, largely because I'm concentrating on poetry. Also I make crafts as a practical way of reusing materials (and post them here as a way of sharing these ideas!) rather than for any other reason. I love making collage greetings cards and would love to make collage as art, but I'm just not good enough. I love this site: Artwords, which like One Deep Breath, gives a prompt every week - in this case for collage rather than haiku. Inspiring, but looking at everyone elses input, I realise just how far I've got to go before my collages become real art!

Urban haiku

This week's prompt at One Deep Breath is to write an urban haiku. The first of these is an old haiku that I wrote a while ago, the second is a re-writing of a poem I recently posted on this blog) and the third is a summer version of an old Spring haiku.

busy city streets

skyscrapers dominate

clouds reflect on chrome

derelict building

debris, rubble and rubbish

a bird sings

musc and laughter

enliven dull city streets

Summer has returned

Soqotra - Land of the Dragon’s Blood Tree

This major new exhibition at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh explores Soqotra, one of the world’s most biologically diverse, yet least-known island chains, off the coast of Yemen. It is a stunning exhibition with video, photos, installations and plants, showing some of the incredible biological wealth of this little known place.

From 1 July 2006 to 29 October 2006 Exhibition 10am - 5pm Exhibition Hall, Botanic Gardens, Inverleith, Edinburgh. Free.

For more information on the Royal Botanic Gardens in Scotland visit: www.rbge.org.uk/

Haiku - Ritual

This week's haiku prompt on One Deep Breath is ritual or ceremony. We were asked to think about a ritual or ceremony from our own life, but what came to me first was this haiku below, which is based on a poem I posted earlier here:

Air burial
vultures take body, heart, soul,
Heavenwards


I have always been of the view that haiku in English do not need to strictly follow the 5-7-5 syllable rule, after all English is not a syllabic language in the same way that Japanese is. The point to me of a haiku is to capture a moment....

Regeneration

A historic community centre ‘no longer needed’
is redeveloped into executive flats.

Builders move in with constant noise and dust
uproot the cherry trees and lawn.

Yet sometimes behind the machinery’s din
if you listen carefully, you can hear

the cheerful warble of a blackcap.

Customised clothing - beading

I always have wonderful ideas for customising whole new outfits out of jumble sale finds but this is as far as I ever get! This (second hand) dress was nice to start with, the beads (taken from the same old skirt as for the satin purse long-standing readers may remember me posting a while back) add a touch of colour round the neckline.

Haiku - Journey

This week's challenge on One Deep Breath is to write a haiku about journeys. This is mine, a little ahead of time in a sense:

swifts so soon arrived

leaving for abroad again

constantly flying

In the Dark

a poem for Anya, our rabbit

She hides in dark places,
remembers what she needs to:
scents, the food stores,

tries to explore things
just out of reach,
steals electric wiring,

plays with boxes,
folds and refolds
a moth-eaten pillow-case.

When no-one’s watching
she dances
joyful.

Rabbit links

If, like us, you have a rabbit, here are some useful links:

House Rabbit Society
Friends of Rabbits
Carrot Cafe
Your nearest Rabbit rehoming centre (UK)
Bunny Haven (East Lothian)